More Than A Story

By Bob Weiser

From childhood on, the author has been fascinated by reading and the power of words to express personalities and events. Through travels across this continent and worldwide, from Mexico to Canada, from Italy to Fiji, the delight of words in storytelling continues to bring style and vigor to his stories and reflections on those experiences. From a variety of occupational experiences including truck driving, pastoring a church, teaching in private and public schools, and doing business as a licensed masonry contractor, his stories are a reflection of the great variety of life experiences humans on this planet give rise to and to enjoy the images and feelings that come to their minds as he relates his. To do so is a compelling objective that he hopes will motivate others to tell their stories for that truly is the one connection we all share.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798890432544

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More Than A Story

Bob Weiser

ISBN 979-8-89043-253-7 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89043-254-4 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Bob Weiser

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

More Than a Story, Volume 1

Introduction

Chapter 1

Old Chollie

Chapter 2

Rock and Daisy

Chapter 3

What a Ride

Chapter 4

Free to Live, Free to Die

Chapter 5

The Flying Jackrabbit

Chapter 6

A Texas Stockman

Chapter 7

The Dribblers

Chapter 8

Platform Man

Chapter 9

The Choir Director

Chapter 10

The Lost Wheel

Chapter 11

Haulin' Bees

Chapter 12

Thar' She Blows

Chapter 13

A Long Way from Home

Chapter 14

At the Pool

Chapter 15

A Meal in Hand

Chapter 16

Coon with a Cross

Chapter 17

The Stump

Chapter 18

Life Is Just Like That Sometimes

Chapter 19

Isn't That Just Like a Coon Hunter?

Chapter 20

What to Do Now?

More Than a Story, Volume 2

Introduction

Chapter 1

Nevada 2000

Chapter 2

Farm School

Chapter 3

Other Teaching Moments

Chapter 4

Paint Creek

Chapter 5

Pastoring a Church

Chapter 6

Road Hunting

Chapter 7

4-H Adventures

Chapter 8

Horseback Riding on Sunday Afternoon

Chapter 9

Elementary School Recess

Chapter 10

Up and Over the Hill

Chapter 11

Construction Stories

Chapter 12

Travel Stories

Chapter 13

Cuba Mission Trip

Chapter 14

Tijuana Mission Trips

Chapter 15

Fiji Mission Trips

Chapter 16

Entrepreneurship Stories

Chapter 17

Alternative to Military Service

Chapter 18

Where's da Beef?

Chapter 19

Sheep Drives

Chapter 20

Old Rosie and Her Broom

About the Author

Part 1

More Than a Story, Volume 1

Introduction

A person can make life-altering decisions in any of imaginable situations that seem rational at the moment but later bring along circumstances that are difficult to understand in what are only memories of the previous situation. Maybe that's just a symptom of age and distance, memories of age twenty-one at age seventy-one become more like mirages, somewhat vaguely realistic, but not so much as to promote certainty to the extent that one can move in a particular direction. Perhaps those decisions that do persist are evidence of an unfulfilled need that was submerged when it first appeared but keeps coming around, hinting at its urgency, like a moth, bumping against the glass of the light of inappropriate cultural context, or of lack of support resources sufficient to bring it to fruition.

Such are primal attractions, those involuntary responses to attractive shape and form—the bee to the flower impulse, the singer to the song, or the desire to the fulfillment. Decisions made to satisfy the desire can have life-altering consequences, some productive, some not so. Living life involves those decisions on a daily basis; resistance based on prudence is evidence of the strength of habit, of needing also to maintain stability in the environment, both physical and social. Impulsivity in the mind of the emotionally unstable is proving to be a deadly force in our current cultural milieu; the chickens of a violence honoring, gun toting, video milieu are coming home to roost, perhaps our first line of change lies in parenting decisions that are based on a self-image of being in harmony with other humans and the rest of creation, of peaceful coexistence, and of discipline over one's own reactionary impulses.

Contemporary culture needs, more than ever, a nonviolent outlet for stress and frustration brought on by lack of fulfillment of images of expectations floated by social media, exposing the thinking of those who create ideas and paint these images with the broad brush of what could be. This appeals to the primal instinct in humans to seek satisfaction and secure survival, to control their personal environment, and to elevate the chances of survival of their progeny. Social media is but one form of communication between humans, a modern outgrowth of the desire for information that affects our daily lives, how we proceed in our next thought and action to effect survival and its embellishments. It is a form of storytelling, the time-proven mode of relaying information verbally, with all its nuances of personality and imagination, an activity that continues to hold within itself all the range of human cultural conditioning and reaction to that conditioning. It is that most basic of connections between us, a sharing of our likeness and difference, captivating us like nothing else can, an assurance that we are both similar and unique in our being. Telling stories, what the Hawaiians call talking story, is a delightful means of sharing ourselves with others in an acceptable, useful way. Finding the humorous and the tragic in the events of our lives can be useful in that it provides the outlet of both tears and laughter, a welcome moment when we are closer to our true selves. To that end, I offer these stories; I enjoy writing them, and I hope readers will enjoy them too. More so, the reflections I offer are a glimpse into more than seven decades of experience on this planet, which have given me many opportunities to see both the humorous, the tragic, and the amazing in human and animal behavior. The reader will encounter in these reflections words that are perhaps unfamiliar, panentheism and orthopraxis being two such words. Panentheism is, simply stated, God being in humans and all Creation and all Creation being in God. Orthopraxis is just the way we humans ritualize our interactions with the Creator. Imago Dei means made in God's image. Thank you, Julian of Norwich (AD b.1342–d.1416).

With that, we begin the tales.

Chapter 1

Old Chollie

Old Chollie was just that. He was old. I never knew him to be otherwise. Chollie was how my German-speaking parents pronounced Charlie, the English formal version being Charles. He was a fixture in our rural Texas agricultural community as a veterinarian educated by experience, one who would administer potions, salves, and various remedies to large animals particularly; horses, mules, and cows preferred. Prior to phone service being installed, my dad had to go get Old Chollie, which meant an eight-mile drive into town when an animal was ill. Old Chollie would soon appear in his gravel-road-worn pickup truck, ready to perform necessary ablutions upon the unfortunate patient and even more ready to share stories of his experiences on the other farms of the area, speaking German, as was common in that community in the mid-1950s. He was the experienced purveyor of anecdotal evidence of animal illnesses and may well have been the vector for some, although I don't recall any significant outbreaks of disease of any kind in an era when the commercial, research-based veterinary service was in its infancy. He was dependable; he was cheap, entertaining, and effective, especially when affirming the diagnosis my dad had decided he needed to get him to treat. One technique he used that was so graphic that I can see it in my mind's eye today was for the removal of the larvae of heel flies from the backs of cows. Heel flies laid their eggs on the feet of cows, the larvae burrowed underneath the skin, migrated to the back of the animal, then matured and emerged from the skin through a hole that they chewed while they matured. His method for controlling the population of these flies was to find the maggot under the skin by running a hand over the cow's back, finding the lump in the skin, placing the mouth of a soda bottle over it, then pounding on the bottom of bottle till the maggot popped out through the hole into the bottle, then brushing it off onto the ground where it perished from dehydration or being stepped on. Accompanying the removal process was the recommendation to brush kerosene on the feet of the animal as a means of destroying the eggs of the fly.

Old Chollie was an avid fisherman and, if he was not pressed to move on to the next call for his services, would ask for permission to fish the pond for whatever he could catch of the perch, bass, or catfish that populated it. On one such occasion, he invited me, then an eight-or-so-year-old, to accompany him. We sat on the bank on the pond in a relaxed fashion, enjoying the yet not hot summer sun and the general ambience of a farm pond, with bullfrogs croaking and fish jumping here and there, our cane poles in hand, attentive to our bobbers and ready at their signal to retrieve the prized fish. Into that peaceful pastoral scene, there intruded suddenly a loudly forceful emanation of flatulence from Old Chollie, who at its demise, then settled back in an even more relaxed pose with the optimistic statement of, Now we'll catch a fish!, and to my most utter amazement, he did! As if his trumpet had been the clarion call, the come hither invitation to sample the buffet I've provided to the proximal representatives of the species Pisces! Furthermore, he repeated the endeavor, with success, several times, leaving my eight-year-old consciousness completely impressed and engaged.

Yes, Old Chollie was a character, a man true to his time and place, fully engaged in his role as provider of services to his community, a true representative of the brand salt of the earth. MHRIP.

Reflection

I've been meaning to add to these stories some sense of completeness, some sense of fulfillment that could make them seem profound, significant somehow to how they affected that era or stage of development of my life. The question I am tempted to answer is: How are these stories a reflection of my spirituality as I currently perceive it, and how might the reader realize some effect on his or her own life? What do I mean by spirituality? Simply put, it's my relationship with the Creator of the universe that I know on a daily basis; it's how I interact with everything around me. To borrow a phrase from theologian Justo Gonzales, it's my attempt at dirt under the fingernails theology. I want to think that these experiences not only affected my character in some way that manifested itself later in my life in a positive way, but that that might also be true for the reader, so in the context of Old Chollie, I guess that such a manifestation has come through in my relationship to animals I have lived with in the years hence, or the fact that I worked for a veterinarian for a while during my twenty-something years. Because our experiences are shaped largely by our personality, it was Old Chollie's personality that affected me more than his skill as a veterinarian; he was always sunny-side up, always ready with a joke or funny tale about his work or clients and never seemed to take himself or his work too seriously, which is probably why he was usually successful. How might that be related to spiritual formation? I think it goes all the way back in history to Constantine and his role in the development (via sponsorship in construction of buildings to house worshippers) of the Christian church as an institution, one that was sanctioned by his prevailing governance for its own purposes of recruiting individuals for its armies. That began an era of the church taking its institutionalism too seriously, as had the Pharisees before them, which became an itch of the ego that couldn't be scratched enough, leading through the years to an investment in hierarchy of leadership at the expense of confident lay servant activity. It turned the model that Jesus lived upside down, a model of transient lay servanthood that shared his love in very practical ways where the people he ministered to lived. I can hope and act in such a way that the current transformation of the church is based on caring rather than doctrine.

Chapter 2

Rock and Daisy

The pups were in a habit of running ahead of the tractor, two furrows apart, staying just ahead of the oncoming tire, sometimes so close that the tip of their tail would brush against the tire yet always managing to stay out of reach of the tire, despite sampling various aromas they encountered along the way. These two, Rock and Daisy, as they'd been named by the young operator of the tractor, myself, were Redbone hounds, from nose tip to tail tip, both the distinctive reddish copper color of their breed.

Littermates they were, their arrival into the possession and affections of the young operator, myself, uncertain, but most likely through the gifting of an uncle in Houston who had a passion for coon hunting, making weekend trips up into our part of the country to spend hours in the dark of night urging his pack of three or four hounds to detect, trail, and tree the always elusive and speedy coons. Fighters they were too, when cornered, their strong jawed teeth, made for crushing crawdads for dinner, could inflict great damage to a hound's face in the battle that ensued when they could no longer run or decided to turn and address this annoyance of the lead dog with desperate measures of tooth. It has been told that a big boar coon, forty pounds of fightin' fury, water familiar warrior that he is, could drown a tired hound by grabbing its nose in its jaws and holding the hound's head under water until it succumbed. Their primary advantage over the hounds lay in their ability to climb trees and hide which they did with amazing ability, the signal for which was a sustained baying by the hounds in a way that indicated that they were stationary, no longer chasing the coon but had treed it and were anxious for the hunters to come and dislodge it for battle.

One weekend night in particular, the uncle brought up his dogs and his two sons and along with Dad, brother, and myself ventured over to Paint Creek, to some crop land leased for corn, watermelons, and sweet potatoes. The corn was in milk stage, and the coons had been helping themselves to it with gusto, no doubt very grateful that such a feast had been provided for them and seemingly enthusiastic about continuing their depredations. Our party of coon hunters were equally enthusiastic about persuading them otherwise as were the hounds, who were eager to trail any and all coons they could find enjoying a corn picnic. We drove up to the cornfield, let the dogs out of their trailer, and sure enough, within a few minutes, a great baying commenced as one dog found the scent, called his colleagues to his side to confirm that it was a coon, then off they ran in a pack, noses to the ground, in hot pursuit of these masked marauders who dared to feast up on their master's corn. One particular coon, loath to leave the proximity of such an abundance of feasting, and likely too full of corn to run very far, treed up in a big pin oak on the edge of the field, and within minutes, there issued forth that canine music that thrills the ears of all coon hunters, that signal that says, We've got him, boss, your turn! Mozart, at his finest, knew no sweeter sound! Flashlights and rifles at the ready, the hunters navigated the brush to the tree, soon found the coon within the branches and dispatched him with a well-placed shot from a .22-caliber rifle. The coon tumbled down out of the tree and was set upon with enthusiasm by the hounds, who soon lost interest when it offered no pugilistic resistance. Off they went in search of the next one.

After a number of successes, each one more distant from the last as the marauders retreated from the field, the hounds spent some time casting about, and we were near to conclude that they were about to forego the pursuit of coon when we heard a yip from the lead dog with an entirely different note that the uncle surmised was evidence of a different species of interest. The dogs were quite a way off, maybe a half mile or so, trailing away from us into an area thick with underbrush of yaupon. Loath to give up on such a successful evening of hunting, off we went toward the hounds who soon sounded that satisfactory musical note of Treed, but that contained a note of uncertainty as if to say, We got 'em, boss. Not sure if ya want 'em but come git 'em! After fighting our way through that thicket of yaupon, we soon came upon the hounds milling about the base of a huge eastern aromatic cedar tree, barking up at the branches with continued uncertainty mixed with anxious whining and looking up into the branches of the tree. Try as we might with all the flashlights we had, none could locate whatever it was up in that tree. A very brief glimpse of reflection off the eyes of the animal convinced us that there was something up there but gave no clue as to its identity. One of the cousins was about fourteen years old at that time, a very athletic young man, and soon was directed by his father to climb the tree with a flashlight to investigate, which he did obediently but with limited enthusiasm. After what seemed like an eternity, we heard from above a snarling, hissing, and growling that evidenced abundantly the presence of a member of a feline species, accompanied by a bloodcurdling scream of fright from the cousin, who came crashing down through the ends of the branches of the tree, yelling at the top of his lungs, That's no coon, that's a big bobcat! Evidently, the 'cat had retreated as far up the tree as he could find support, then stopped and confronted his unwelcome visitor with music of his own before leaping over into the next tree and fleeing the scene of his distress. The cousin most eagerly abandoned his investigation and relocated in the other direction, finally bouncing his way down through the smaller branches to come to rest on the biggest branches near the ground. The hounds surged forward to retrieve the prey but stopped short in puzzlement when they caught his familiar scent. As dogs will when they've chased a cat with wary enthusiasm lest they catch it, they gave up all interest in the hunt and flopped on the ground, tongues lolling, to rest for the return to their snug trailer. After checking the cousin for serious injury and finding nothing more than branch scratches, we too concluded that it was best to conclude the hunt, leaving Paint Creek filled with success and ready to impart our tales of high adventure to the womenfolk and youngsters at home.

But back to Rock and Daisy, trotting along ahead of the front tire of the tractor cultivating cotton. The young operator, myself, intent on driving the tractor so as to avoid cutting off the young cotton plants with the front mounted cultivator sweeps, didn't notice that Daisy had stopped her forward progress, totally captivated by some entrancing aroma, maybe of cottontail rabbit, until a sharp yelp of pain indicated that the front tire had caught up with her and had run right up over her hindquarters and spine and splayed her back legs perpendicular to her front. I myself stopped the tractor immediately, ran to where she was dragging herself along the furrow, gathered her up soothingly, and raced from the field toward the house, seeking the mother's assistance in restoring the mobility of this most loved patient. We laid her on her bed of old burlap sacks and, with some manipulating, managed to move her hind legs back into their sockets and within a few days, Daisy was back on four wheels, but ever after was known to have the peculiar gait known as dog tracking in which the rear paws are placed offset from the front as the dog trots forward. Not long after the incident, the uncle came to reclaim them to start their training as coon hounds and myself is sure that one of the first lessons they learned from the old lead dog as they relaxed after cleaning their food bowls was the story of how one night he had treed a 'cat only to have a boy come tumbling down out of the tree! Wonders never cease!

Aaarroooo!

Reflection

Of the animals in my early years, these two were the first to capture my heart, as they were mine with which to begin to know the power of love and care for something other than my competitive self-interest. Indeed, as we were six siblings at table until my fifth year, we all needed and aspired to individual objects of attention that were not destined to be eaten or marketed; these two dogs filled that role for me. How that may relate to spiritual formation was but vaguely defined then, it being in the ballpark of what I now know as a basis for indigenous spirituality as I've studied it, both on this continent and in the Celtic spiritual relationship to nature and its beings. There was no sense of separation from the affairs of Mother Earth then; it was part and parcel of being a child of the land onto which I had been born and from which I gained nourishment for body, mind, and to a great extent, soul. Perhaps the Master had that in mind when he said that we are to have the mind as of a child in relationship to the Creator, for of such is the kingdom of God. I sensed then in that relationship to those young hounds the value of animal objects' du amor in the lives of children and have observed that value in my own children and their relationship with their pets during their childhood. That love can be developed as a dynamic force through association with animals there is no doubt, especially those with whom we can establish a purposeful activity, dogs and horses come to mind here, and that that force can be significant in both mundane and emergency situations has been proven too many times in too many places to enumerate. I'm sure that for many pet and working animal owners, the idea that heaven would not include the presence of their beloved companionable four-leggeds would be a major deterrent to its attractiveness to them.

Chapter 3

What a Ride

As I pulled away from the hotel that morning on my bike, I had already experienced a rather disappointing start to the day and maybe that's what had me in a rather sour mood as I lined out the bike to put some distance between me and that low rent establishment in West Memphis, Tennessee. I had woken up determined to get in some good distance toward Chicago and going to the bathroom to shower. I laid my high school ring on the vanity, took a shower, got dressed, and headed back to my room to pack up, forgetting to pick up my ring. I went back when I realized I hadn't picked it up, but it was already gone! That was a serious blow to my self-image, but what to do? Reporting it to the desk clerk resulted only in a vague shrug that suggested a less than concerned